Thousands of Egyptian protesters have blocked access to the harbour and rallied outside state buildings in Port Said to demand justice over the deaths of dozens of people killed in riots last month.
The violence on Sunday was triggered by anger over the death sentences handed down to 21 people from Port Said for their involvement in a soccer stadium disaster in the city a year ago in which more than 70 people were killed.
The verdict enraged people in Port Said, where the majority of the condemned were local soccer fans, many of whom claim innocence.
Sunday's day of "civil disobedience" was called by hardcore football supporters of Port Said's al-Masry, the club that had been playing a home match against Cairo's Al Ahly when the stadium disaster occurred in February 2012.
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Al Jazeera's Rawya Rageh, reporting from Cairo, said that the protest was aimed at "bringing the city to a complete standstill".
"A few thousand marched through Port Said, laying siege to key government buildings, including city hall, the port authority, the industrial zone and parts of the railway tracks," said Rageh.
Witnesses said around 3,000 people took part in the protest, demanding the death sentence for those responsible for the January 26 violence set off by a verdict read out in Cairo.
"With our lives, with our blood, we will sacrifice ourselves to you martyrs: Either we avenge you or we die like you!" they chanted.
"The disobedience will last for one day and could continue if the protesters' calls for the death sentence for the killers
of martyrs are not granted," said Ahmad Mutwalli, a political activist in Port Said.
The protesters also disrupted train services.
General Ahmed Najeeb, head of the General Authority of Port Said, said the protest had not affected shipping activity at the Mediterranean port.
Port Said was one of three provinces near the Suez Canal where President Mohamed Mursi declared a 30-day state of emergency in response to last month's unrest.
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and Pakistan boiling over as latest attacks take huge toll.....
http://news.antiwar.com/2013/02/17/fury-in-pakistans-quetta-as-officials-shift-blame-for-bombing/
Shi'ites Urge Military Takeover of City Security
by Jason Ditz, February 17, 2013
The massive weekend bombing in the Pakistani city of Quetta has left not only a major death toll, but anger in the streets and in government buildings, where officials struggle to shift blame for the attack.
 Balochistan Governor Nawab Magsi blamed the attack on intelligence agencies, accusing them of being “too scared or too clueless” to stop the attack. Magsi was given huge amounts of extra authority after the last attack, however, and many are blaming him for not stopping the strike.
The Lashkar-e Jhangvi (LeJ) claimed credit for the attack and the group, whose entire existence centers around attacking Shi’ites, seems to be able to carry out such attacks with virtual impunity, leading to speculation that the government doesn’t really want to stop them.
Shi’ite protesters in Quetta, sick of the constant barrage of attacks, have urged the military to step up and take over direct security in the city, convinced that the local police simply are unable or unwilling to do so.
Though this is unlikely in the near term, the continued anger may well be reflected in the next elections, scheduled for April, in which the ruling party and other mainstays of Pakistani policies will try to explain why their security plans haven’t stopped sectarian violence, and why voters should choose them over newer parties with different plans.
And Iraq continues its parade of horribles....
http://www.firstpost.com/world/thousands-of-sunnis-gather-across-iraq-to-protest-against-shiite-govt-626993.html
Thousands of Sunnis gather across Iraq to protest against Shiite govt
Baghdad: Tens of thousands of Sunni Muslims have gathered in several Iraqi cities to protest against what they describe as unfair treatment by the country’s Shiite-led government.
In the western cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, former insurgent strongholds, demonstrators blocked the main highway to Jordan and Syria to perform Friday noon prayers. Others gathered in main squares in the northern cities of Samarra and Mosul, and outside a prominent Sunni mosque in the Baghdad.
Sunni Muslims protest against the government. AP
In the capital, security forces blocked roads leading from Sunni-dominated provinces and sealed off all Sunni neighborhoods.
Sunnis have staged mass rallies since late December, demanding Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki step down and calling for an end to raids in their areas and measures against former regime officials, as well as for the release of prisoners.
http://original.antiwar.com/updates/2013/02/17/iraq-horror-52-killed-141-wounded/
Iraq Horror: 52 Killed, 141 Wounded
Sunday: 52 Killed, 141 Wounded
At least 37 people were killed and 130 more were wounded in a series of blasts around Baghdad. The attacks focused on Shi’ite neighborhoods and took place in busy marketplaces or garages. At least two more car bombs were discovered and rendered harmless before they could be detonated. The attacks began in Sadr City and were followed in close succession by blasts in the Amin, Habibiya, Husseiniya, Kamaliya, Karrada, and Saidiya neighborhoods.
Elsewhere in Iraq, at least 15 people were killed, mostly security forces or their targets. Another 11 were wounded.
Bombs rendered an oil pipeline inoperative near the Baiji refinery.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2013/02/2013217181556808767.html
Pakistan Shias demand action over attack
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Government vows action as Shia leaders give 48-hour deadline to act against perpetrators of attack that left 84 dead.
Last Modified: 18 Feb 2013 08:17
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Shia Muslims in Pakistan have called on the government to take decisive action after a bombing by a pro-Sunni sectarian group killed 84 people in Quetta, even as the country’s interior minister assured better security for the beleaguered minority.
"We want to register our protests. We demand that the Pakistani army and judiciary take notice of the blasts and launch targeted operations against those responsible for such acts of terrorism," Fida Husain Sadiq, a Shia Muslim leader, told Al Jazeera on Sunday.Rahman Malik, Pakistan’s interior minister, told Al Jazeera: "We are taking every possible measure to provide full security to the Shia community."
"We really feel sorry for the victims. Obviously those who are trying to destabilise Pakistan through sectarianism, I think that they have a plan… We have been handling it, and we will handle it further."
On Sunday, the government issued a $1m reward for information leading to the attackers.
The latest attack comes barely a month after nearly 95 Hazara Shia community members were killed in a terrorist attack in Quetta, capital of Balochistan province.
The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the pro-Sunni sectarian group, claimed responsibility for both the attacks.
The provincial government was sacked after the January attack, which led relatives of the victims to refuse to bury their dead while they held a 76-hour protest sit-in.
The governor has said the blast was the result of a failure of the provincial security and intelligence agencies.
"Officials and personnel of these institutions are scared [of the terrorists]. Therefore they don't take action against them," Zulfiqar Magsi said in comments that were broadcast on local television.
'Arrest the culprits'
Malik, the interior minister, assured that action was being taken by the government to allay fears in the region.
"I have in fact instructed this afternoon to Frontier Corps [paramilitary force] and the police that they should hunt those Lashkar-e-Jhangvi guys wherever they are."
Aziz Hazara, vice president of the Hazara Democratic Party, said government was responsible for the killing of Hazara community.
"We are giving the government 48 hours to arrest the culprits involved in the killing of our people and after that we will launch strong protests," he said.
The families of some of the victims have said they will not bury their dead until the army steps in to protect Shias, said Hasnain Zaidi, a spokesman for an alliance of Shia groups called Majlis Wahdat al-Muslimeen.
The violence touched a chord among Pakistanis elsewhere in the country, with small-scale protests being held in Islamabad, Karachi and at least 12 other cities.
At the Islamabad rally, hundreds of Shias and various civil rights groups demanded the government crackdown on Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.
Unpopular government
The unpopular government, gearing up for elections expected within months, faces growing anger for failing to deliver stability.
Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from Quetta, said: "It's after all a government that nobody takes seriously and [an] interior minister that nobody takes seriously, either, because he has been claiming that he would bring the situation under control and then it spirals out of control.
"The situation here in Quetta is once again becoming dangerous."
Last year was the deadliest so far for Pakistan's Shia Muslim community, which accounts for about 20 percent of the population, with more than 400 people dead in targeted killings.
Violence has been especially intense in Balochistan, which has seen more than 200 deaths in the last 35 days.
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and Bangladesh....
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Tensions rise over Bangladesh war crimes law
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Protester killed during strike after government amends law to allow retrial of politicians charged with war crimes.
Last Modified: 18 Feb 2013 11:53
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Police have shot dead a protester in demonstrations in eastern Bangladesh amid a nationwide strike called by the opposition Jamaat-e-Islami party.
Authorities kept schools and colleges open and many businesses reopened on Monday.
Jamaat, the country's largest Islamist party, called the strike to protest against the death last Friday of four of its activists in police shooting in the southeastern city of Cox's Bazaar.
At least 14 people have been killed so far during protests against government trials of Jamaat leaders for atrocities allegedly committed during the 1971 independence war from Pakistan.
Monday’s violence erupted in the town of Chouddogram, a day after Bangladesh parliament amended war crime laws to allow groups, not just individuals, to be prosecuted for war crimes.
The amendment will "empower the tribunals to try and punish any organisations, including Jamaat-e-Islami, for committing crimes during country's liberation war in 1971", Shafique Ahmed, Bangladesh law minister, said.
Amendment cheered
Tens of thousands of demonstrators, jamming central Shahbag Square in Dhaka for the 13th straight day, cheered as the assembly approved the changes on Sunday.
They have been demanding death penalty for war crimes after a tribunal this month sentenced a prominent Jamaat-e-Islami leader to life in prison in connection with Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.
The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of Begum Khaleda Zia, former prime minister, and its Jamaat allies have been boycotting sessions almost since her rival, Sheikh Hasina Wajed, the current prime minister, took office in 2009.
Lawyers said Sunday's amendment sets a timetable for the government to appeal against Mollah's sentence and secure a retrial.
The previous law did not allow state prosecutors to call for a retrial except in the case of acquittals.
Politicians on trial
Eight other Jamaat leaders, including its current and former chiefs, are being tried by the tribunal, set up in 2010 to investigate abuses during the 1971 conflict.
Tens of thousand of pro-liberation Bengalis were killed during the war, many by pro-Pakistani militias whose members allegedly included Jamaat officials.
Supporters of Jamaat have held rallies to question the war tribunal’s neutrality.
They have described the tribunal as politically motivated and demanded that the Jamaat leaders be tried under the auspices of the UN.
The BNP has accused Hasina's Awami League-led government of using the tribunal as a weapon against its opponents.
Hasina has denied the allegation.
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And note Kuwait cracking down on dissent - might Kuwait be next to see massive protests ?
http://www.juancole.com/2013/02/formerly-dissident-kinninmont.html
Posted on 02/17/2013 by Juan
Jane Kinninmont writes for ISLAMiCommentary
Kuwait has traditionally had the greatest freedom of speech of all the Gulf monarchies, as well as having the most powerful parliament. Yet, like all its Gulf neighbours, it has started to crack down on criticism of the ruler since the onset of the Arab spring.
At least 25 people have been charged with “insulting” the Emir since October 2012, and several of them, including three former MPs, have been convicted this year. But in a sign that local and international pressure may be causing the authorities to reconsider, a Kuwaiti court this week acquitted five activists of similar charges – just one day after Human Rights Watch issued a hard-hitting statement urging the Kuwaiti government to drop ”all speech-related charges against online activists and former members of parliament.”
Social media use is soaring in the Gulf, and Kuwaitis use Twitter more than any of their neighbours, with nearly one-quarter of a million Twitter users in a country of 2.8m people — the highest proportion of the population in the Arab world.
The predominantly young population, more than half of which is under 30, is attracted to social media partly because it offers freer debate than the traditional newspapers and broadcasters, though of course many use it primarily for socialising and flirting.
But this surge in the use of new, informal, internationally connected and largely unregulated forms of communication comes at a time when the Gulf ruling families have profound concerns about the impact of the Arab uprisings on their own countries, and are internally divided about how to deal with the youth activism that is growing even in the wealthier corners of the region.
Death Penalty for Blasphemy?
Kuwait’s Twitter arrests initially focused on people who had offended the more conservative authorities of neighbouring countries. In 2011, one young man, Nasser Abul, was imprisoned for “insulting” the rulers of neighbouring states Bahrain and Saudi Arabia on Twitter (charges that were eventually dropped). In 2012, another, Hamad Naqi, was imprisoned for insulting both neighbouring rulers and the Prophet Mohammed (the larger part of the sentence was for the rulers).
Meanwhile, Kuwaiti MPs were also calling for greater restrictions on freedom of speech, in the form of a draft law providing for the death penalty for those convicted of blasphemy. The Emir refused to pass it. At the same time, in neighbouring Saudi Arabia, Hamza Kashgari — who wrote a few lines of poetry on his Twitter account in which he addressed the Prophet as though he was an equal — was accused of blasphemy. He then fled the country, and managed to reach Malaysia, but was deported back to Saudi, where he was imprisoned.
Conservatives on Twitter called for him to be killed, belying the comfortable myth that social media necessarily brings about a flowering of liberal youth. This divisive case exacerbated fissures in the nascent Saudi opposition movement between those that seek a more religious state and those that focus more on their desire for a constitutional monarchy. Similarly, in Kuwait, some liberals felt the Emir was protecting them from what they saw as the excesses of an elected parliament dominated by Islamist and tribal leaders.
Kuwaitis protest against new electoral law (Nov. 2012). Placard reads “The Nations Dignity” (photo by Jane Kinninmont)
Testing the Boundaries
In 2013 the number of arrests for social media “crimes” in the Gulf have become harder to count.
Kuwait has seen a slew of arrests recently for “insults” to the leadership as well as unlicenced protests. On February 3, Mohammad Eid al-Ajmi was sentenced to the maximum five years in prison for insulting the Emir (a state security offense) on Twitter.
These arrests follow tensions over last year’s early election, which was called after repeated stalemates between the elected parliament and appointed government. After numerous short-term attempts to solve the problem by dissolving the parliament and calling new elections, the Emir announced in October that the voting system would be changed. The ensuing election, in December, was boycotted by the opposition, some simply unhappy that their old system of forming alliances had been removed, and others protesting against the idea that the power to change the voting system should be in the hands of the ruler — something still being reviewed by the constitutional court.
Now, an increasingly vocal opposition outside the parliament is testing the boundaries of Kuwaiti politics — drumming up support for street protests instead of working within the parliament — and is calling for a fully elected government, though still under a constitutional monarchy. Neighbouring Gulf countries are none too pleased to see this challenge to a monarchical system in their backyard.
Meanwhile, nonaligned young people are getting caught in the middle. Not all of those arrested were activists. The tweets deemed to constitute criminal offences have even included a retweet of a line of poetry by Ahmed Matar, an Iraqi poet, who, ironically, left Iraq in the 1970s to take refuge in the more liberal environment of Kuwait.
One young tweep told me that while he disliked the opposition, on the basis that the Islamists within it had sought to bring in the restrictions on blasphemy, he now found himself marching side by side with Salafists and members of the Muslim Brotherhood to protest against the government’s crackdown on its critics. Liberal youth find themselves caught in the middle between the Islamist ex-MPs who called for blasphemers to be executed, and a government that has been tightening its political red lines.
Freedom of Expression, Social Media and National Security
Last week, coincidentally on the day al-Ajmi was sentenced for insulting the emir on Twitter, the Euro-Gulf Centre at Kuwait University held a discussion, jointly organised with the British Embassy, on the theme of freedom of expression, social media and national security. I was one of two British participants asked to speak about international experiences with social media and freedom of speech, alongside a Kuwaiti constitutional expert, Mohammed Al Fili, and newspaper editor, Walid Al Nusf.
All of us spoke about social media as an evolving phenomenon that was testing existing assumptions and regulations, and about the need for every country to balance security concerns and political sensitivities with freedom of speech.
Walid Al Nusf said he was sad to see a young man imprisoned for his tweets, and that while the punishment was within Kuwaiti law, he felt there might be better ways to deal with dissent. Education, he argued, was a better way forward than censorship, surveillance and punishment. Mohammed Al Fili likewise noted that the constitution said the Emir was inviolable, but also spoke of the value of freedom of speech and opinion — something that many Kuwaitis see as part of their national identity, especially compared to their Gulf neighbours.
British lawyer Alasdair Gillespie described the UK regulations, which place more restrictions on free speech than those in the US where free speech is defended by the constitution. In the UK there are restrictions on inciting violence or hatred based on race, religion or sexual orientation, as well as libel laws strict enough to attract the easily offended as “libel tourists” to London, who come to file cases against publishers. But British legal precedent has established that there is no right not to be offended; that offensiveness is not enough for something to be banned.
In my comments at the Kuwait University discussion, I argued that not only are we are learning about social media, we are inventing how to use it, and are only just beginning to realise the potential of the technology to contribute to social, political and even linguistic changes. In terms of media regulation, social media users blur the line between private and public discourse – which can create conflicts when someone is essentially addressing their friends on Facebook and suddenly finds themself falling foul of laws designed for old media.
All countries are struggling to deal with it. In a famous case in the UK, a Twitter user, Paul Chambers, was convicted of sending a “menacing electronic communication” in 2010 after he tweeted a misconceived joke complaining that the snow had closed his local airport and that he was tempted to blow the whole thing up. No one at any point mistook his tweet for a real terrorist threat, and an online campaign for the charges to be dropped was formed, with thousands retweeting his tweet with the hashtag #IAmSpartacus – a reference to the film Spartacus, a symbol of the strength of a united crowd in preventing someone being singled out for punishment.
Democratising Power for Good or Ill
Meanwhile, the outrage in many Muslim countries over the controversial film about the prophet Mohammed that appeared on YouTube in 2011 may have had complex political roots, but it also highlighted genuine differences around the notion of blasphemy, which used to be a crime in many Western countries but is now often seen as an idea belonging to the past. In this case, social media’s democratising power had the negative effect of giving disproportionate attention to a badly made film that was hardly representative of mainstream Western opinion. Protests drew more attention to the film and many seemed to have the incorrect impression that this was a Hollywood production or somehow sanctioned by the US government, whereas before social media it would never have been broadcast into Muslim homes.
A more traditional side of Kuwait — Souk Mbarkiya. (photo by Jane Kinninmont)
I also argued that it is possible to overstate cultural differences here. Yes, different societies may have different traditions and norms about what constitutes acceptable discourse. But usually this is contested within each society. The notion that we all live in different cultures belies the change, contestation and ideas being shared within and between cultures, and the existence of multiple subcultures, with different views about what is “appropriate” or acceptable — something that can also change across generations. Moreover, harsh punishments for what is said on Twitter or Facebook can be deeply counterproductive, and can have precisely the opposite effect of what is intended.
Coming so soon after al-Ajmi’s sentencing, it was no simple task to discuss the issue with an audience that ranged from establishment dignitaries to furious student activists. At times like this the desire to be diplomatic can shade into self-censorship. As a Western visitor, I felt on one hand an obligation to be polite about the practices of a country I had just arrived in, and on the other hand, as the event went on, I became aware of an expectation, at least on the part of some of the students, that the Western speakers, who had no fear of arrest or retribution, should be the ones standing up for freedom of speech.
At a time when Kuwait was arresting people for what they had said on Twitter, one journalist asked why the British government was supporting such a discussion, when the local papers had recently reported that there was a new agreement between Kuwait and several British firms to co-operate on cyber security.
(Bahraini NGOs, meanwhile, have filed a complaint with the OECD about the alleged activities of British cyber-surveillance firms working for the Bahrain government, which has also imprisoned Twitter users for insulting the ruler or for calling for protests. There, Twitter and YouTube are often used by activists to document protests, broadcast political speeches and satire, and, in some cases, to take footage of local police violence to a global audience.)
Using the hashtag #Q8_expression, most of the Twitter comments directed at the Kuwait University speakers were sarcastic, and some angry:
“Will this hashtag guarantee freedom from prosecution?”
“Why doesn’t the UK just provide our rulers with a book on Constitutional Monarchy 101?”
The Kuwaiti authorities are now preparing a new law on social media. Officials say this will provide more clarity and encourage people to use social media “responsibly”, but activists are concerned by the precedent set by the UAE, which issued a sweeping new cyber crimes law in December.
That law makes it an imprisonable offence to use information technology with the intention of mocking or harming the reputation of the state or its rulers, or to advocate changing the system of governance.
In 2011, five UAE activists were imprisoned for several months for insulting the rulers after organising a petition calling for an elected parliament, and more than 90 more dissidents have been arrested since then.
Even in Qatar, which abolished its information ministry and presents itself as an enlightened advocate of freedom and debate, a poet has been imprisoned for life for a poem deemed to insult the ruler. It’s likely his poem is reaching larger audiences as a result.
Jane Kinninmont is the Senior Research Fellow on the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House. Previously, she was Associate Director for Middle East and Africa at the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), part of the Economist Group. Jane has a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford, Balliol College, and an MSc in International Politics with a focus on the Middle East from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. Jane has published one book of poetry, ‘Seven League Stilettos’, and is currently working on a book about Bahrain for UK-based publishers IB Tauris. Follow Jane on Twitter @JaneKinninmont.
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